BASEBALL

BASEBALL; Small Victories Equal a Defeat for the Yankees

By TYLER KEPNER

Published: June 9, 2002

Baseball's best closer stared down the game's best power hitter for the first time in their careers. The score was tied in the ninth inning in front of a sold-out crowd on the sport's grandest stage. Mariano Rivera fired six cut fastballs to Barry Bonds, who swung and missed at the last one.

It was an electric moment and a small victory for Rivera. But it was only the second out, and it did not decide the game. A spinning squibber off a broken bat helped the San Francisco Giants bring down Rivera yesterday, 4-3, at Yankee Stadium.

''That's baseball, man, you can't say nothing about it,'' Rivera said. ''When you think you've got it done, it gets tough. What can you do?''

After Bonds's strikeout, Jeff Kent punched a single to center on the ninth pitch of his at-bat. Rich Aurilia, who had walked, scampered to third. When Rivera got Benito Santiago to splinter his bat on a grounder toward second, he said he was sure he was out of the inning.

Yankees Manager Joe Torre was not. He saw the ball spinning awkwardly and was worried. Torre hoped second baseman Alfonso Soriano would recognize that Santiago lacked speed, and that there was plenty of time to throw the runner out.

Soriano, who was moving to his left, could not tell which direction the ball would bounce because of the spin. It bounced to his right, forcing him to extend his bare hand. The ball deflected off it for an error, enabling Aurilia to score. Rivera could only throw up his hands.

''I was upset,'' Rivera said. ''I'm allowed to get upset.''

Torre said he was not angry with Soriano, though he blamed the error on Soriano's inexperience and unfamiliarity with Santiago. Soriano said it was simpler than that.

''I know he's a slow runner,'' he said. ''I tried to catch the ball with both hands, but the ball moved quick. I had no choice.''

The Yankees had no chance in the ninth against Giants reliever Robb Nen, who shut them down in order to complete a masterly pitching effort by the Giants. Starter Jason Schmidt worked eight innings and struck out 13, the most by a Giants pitcher in 19 years.

The Yankees had only two hits, and even Nick Johnson's three-run homer in the second inning did not impress the man who hit it.

''I didn't hit it real good,'' Johnson said. ''Maybe the wind was helping. Maybe it was just back spin, I don't know. It got enough, though.''

Johnson's homer barely made it onto the short porch in right field, the ball landing in the walkway in front of the first row of seats. But it counted the same as Bonds's mammoth blast in the first inning off Ted Lilly, who was down, 3-0, before recording an out.

In a meeting with Lilly before the series, Torre had warned him not to make Bonds bigger than life. ''But if Barry comes up with a couple of men on base,'' Torre said yesterday morning, ''there's not a whole lot you can do.''

Lilly found that out immediately. He walked the leadoff hitter, David Bell, then gave up a ground-ball single to Aurilia. His first pitch to Bonds was a high, swinging strike, and after a ball, Lilly tried to beat Bonds again with a fastball.

He wanted it outside but it stayed in, and Bonds smashed it down the right-field line about halfway up the third deck. The pitch was the kind most hitters pull foul. Bonds stays inside the ball so well, Lilly said, that he could not get away with his mistake.

''There's no shame in it, but when you're facing the best in the game, you want to win a little bit more,'' Lilly said.

Lilly gave up no more runs over seven innings. He walked Bonds on four pitches in the third but escaped that inning with the bases loaded. Bonds singled in the fifth, but the Giants left two runners on. After fouling out off Lilly in the seventh, Bonds was beaten by Rivera in the ninth.

But there was one out to go, and the Yankees could not get it. That's baseball, Rivera said, and that was all too true for him yesterday.

INSIDE PITCH

Outfielder JUAN RIVERA was a late arrival yesterday at Yankee Stadium, and then his day got worse. While the Yankees took batting practice, Rivera and some teammates chased fungos near the wall in foul territory down the left-field line. The first-base coach LEE MAZZILLI hit one for Rivera, who pursued it and crashed into a maintenance truck at full speed. He limped off the field with help from a trainer and sustained two cuts and a bruise on his right knee. He was unavailable to play and wore a soft cast, but X-rays on the knee were negative. . . . ANDY PETTITTE will be activated from the disabled list to start Friday's game against the Mets at Shea Stadium, Manager JOE TORRE said. ROGER CLEMENS will pitch Saturday and DAVID WELLS on Sunday. . . . BARRY BONDS's homer was his 21st of the season and the 588th of his career, the highest total reached at Yankee Stadium since Babe Ruth hit his 707th on Sept. 3, 1934. . . . In a meeting before yesterday's game, Yankees players decided to keep reliever MIKE STANTON as their union representative.